EECS 298-11: CAD Seminar
Wednesday, March 12, 1997, 5pm
Cory Hall--Hogan Room

           The Design and Verification of a High-Performance
       Low-Control-Overhead Asynchronous Differential Equation Solver 

  Kenneth Y. Yun, Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego
  Peter A. Beerel, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California

  This talk describes the design and verification of a high-performance
  asynchronous differential equation solver. The design has low control
  overhead which allows the average-case delay to be 48% faster
  (tested at 22 degree C and 3.3V) than any comparable synchronous design
  (simulated at 100 degree C and 3V).  The techniques to reduce completion
  sensing overhead and hide control overhead at the circuit, architectural,
  and protocol levels are discussed.  In addition, the timed distributed
  control and symbolic model checking techniques that were used to gain
  higher confidence in the correctness of the protocol are discussed.

  The design has been fabricated in 0.5 um triple-metal HP CMOS14TB
  process and tested extensively.  The fabricated chips perform
  as simulated, albeit somewhat faster.  The test results show that
  our design is very robust with respect to variations in operating
  temperature and power supply voltage.